


Fear of Water

by Pugstabula (pugstabula)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes & Peggy Carter Friendship, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24439387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pugstabula/pseuds/Pugstabula
Summary: Steve goes down in Austria.One moment they’re battling side by side, two kids play-fighting, scraping their knees beating up the bad guys.Next Bucky watches Steve as he is swallowed by the ravine.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 16





	Fear of Water

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song 'SYML - Fear of Water'. It's what I listened to when I wrote this which is why its a lil depressy.
> 
> TW. notes at end

Steve goes down in Austria. One moment they’re battling side by side, two kids play-fighting, scraping their knees beating up the bad guys. Next Bucky watches Steve as he is swallowed by the ravine. 

Clinging on to the side of the train, his hands are glued to the metal wall of the train that juts out over the steep drop of the cliff’s edge. It’s shock, the immobilisation of horror that means the thought that reverberates around his mind like a siren, the blind desperation to not be alone - _jump_ \- remains a thought. 

The cliffs are a sombre, silent watcher as the train continues unmoved as it leaves Steve behind. _Bucky_ leaves Steve behind. He stays on the train. Falls back into a corner.

Gabe comes through from the front of the carriage after an unbearably long time, a triumphant grin on his face. They’d got Zola and were redirecting the train back to their meeting point with the rest of the Howling Commandos. 

A question flashes across Gabe’s face, ‘where’s Cap,’ but requires no answer. He’s been at war long enough to know the face of a man who’s witnessed a sacrifice. 

Bucky speaks anyway, “I couldn’t save him.”

“

Growing up a scrawny, sickly kid with a righteous streak the size of the East River, Steve Rogers might as well have had a target on his back. Most of his childhood was spent picking fights with any number of bullies, bad guys or even one memorable time, a rather large pigeon. More often than not Bucky was in charge of dragging Steve out of alleyways, nursing a bloody nose, wheezing into Bucky’s side. 

“I almost had him, Buck! One more round and I’ll take him.” Steve squirms under Bucky’s arm, itching to reignite the fight. 

He had fished Steve out from a heap of garbage behind a dumpster after Steve’s Mother, Sarah Rogers, had shown up to his house, anxiously asking if they had seen Steve at all as he was late to dinner. Unfortunately, Bucky had not, but he knew exactly where he would be. And so, like the time before, and the time before that Bucky threw on his hat and jacket and promised Sarah he’d have the plucky kid back before his dinner went cold. 

“Yeah, yeah, next thing you’ll tell me the guy had it coming,” Bucky says, ignoring the wriggling boy’s skinny elbows jabbing at his ribs, “what did he do this time, not look twice before crossing the street?”

He earns another stab to the ribs for that. 

“He was pulling a cat's tail, the thing was crying out at him, I couldn’t let that asshole hurt it.” 

  
  


At 19-years old Steve Rogers had been in more fights than he had years alive, and broken his nose countless times. Always at the back of his frame, there was Bucky. If he wasn’t there to put an end to the fist-throwing he was right alongside Steve, knocking teeth out with him. 

As they grew older, Bucky worked long hours on the docks like his father, and Steve would find odd jobs around the neighbourhood, they finally managed to scrounge up enough money to rent an apartment of their own. Steve’s mother had passed and Bucky’s three sisters were growing older, spilling out into the halls in the dilapidated house, there was little room for Bucky. 

In a crummy one-roomed flat, they shared a sagging bed and could barely furnish the rest of the place. But it was their own space. Steve could sit on the window sill, watching the sun’s slow descent through the sky to kiss the horizon. He would spend hours drawing. Capturing his memories of his mother, Bucky’s sister Becca, who visited often. If he was lucky he’d be asked to draw someone for a handful of pennies, a whimsical portrait of a loved one or a pet they wished to not be forgotten. Steve wasn’t picky about what he drew, so long as he got paid. 

Most days though he drew Bucky - collapsed on the sofa, sweaty and smelly from work, or polished clean, dressed up for an evening of dancing. He’d draw, peeping over his sketchpad, watching as Bucky tried not to burn water or was yet again fixing their leaking ceiling. Capture the early morning fog in Bucky’s eyes, the damp curls that hung over his forehead after he was caught in a shower of rain - moments that belonged just between the two of them. 

On those days, when he fell into an intense daze, pawing at his sketchpad with a crayon, looking as if he was trying to save the world one line at a time, he would refuse to show Bucky his drawing. He claimed he was an ‘artist’ in a haughty voice, raising his pinky in the air, and ‘real artists create art for themselves and no one else’. He’d burrow his sketch pad in his small pile of clothes, keeping Bucky’s likeness to himself, giving Bucky the soft smile that was reserved just for him. 

Those days were Bucky’s favourite. Steve would have enough energy to flit around Bucky, annoy him with crappy jokes, even make it out to the dance hall - not that he dared dance with his two left feet. Somehow, despite his weak lungs and murmuring heart, Bucky would still find Steve in the back of some alley, shouting curses at some knuckle-head who, yeah probably deserved it. Bucky was the one who would pull Steve home, settle him down and fix up his scrapes and bruises. 

Steve would often joke that Bucky was like a disapproving housewife, fussing over Steve with a gentle hand and a stern gaze. He would usually earn a wallop for such talk, but even so, a warmth in the pit of Bucky’s stomach would unfurl, his hands would shake because if Steve _was_ his to dote over, to care for, he couldn’t think of a damn thing wrong with that. 

  
  


Steve saves Bucky too. Bucky’s father spins himself into an alcohol-fueled grave when Bucky is 12 years old. He doesn’t pretend to grieve. All too often his father would come home from the docks, years of war trauma buried in a hole in his mind that he floods with whisky. His drunken daze usually gave way to a wave of restless anger. Bucky takes the brunt of his anger whilst his sisters cower in their shared bedroom, pretending to be asleep. 

When Bucky turns up to the playground the next day with a bruised eye Steve doesn’t say anything. After the first time Bucky had shown up sporting a shiner, Steve had wide-eyed tried to pry the truth from Bucky. He was met with Bucky’s cold, resolute lies. It didn’t take long for the astute Steve to reason that Bucky wasn’t actually that clumsy to be walking into doorknobs every other week. 

Even so, Steve would spend the rest of the day obnoxiously shoving himself into Bucky’s space. Determined to weasel even a small smile from Bucky. Sharing colourful stories, or drawing unflattering cartoons on scraps of paper of their teachers. 

Steve saved Bucky from falling down the pit of his Dad's trauma, every swing of his fist, every shout and shove threatening to instil the same fear that his Dad felt onto himself. Yet young Steve always managed to show up and remind Bucky who he was, shine a light into the darkness and offer a hand. 

So when his Dad dies, he doesn’t cry at the funeral. He bluntly informs Steve of the event and Steve, wise as ever, spends the rest of the day breathing love back into his heart. 

  
  
  
  


When Bucky is shipped to England to fight for his country he expects to never see Steve again. He is doing his duty and that duty looks to be a death sentence. 

But then he’s lying flat on a table, strapped down and exhausted after hours of pain and Steve appears above him. Well, it’s not quite Steve, it looks like an adonis sent from heaven. He’s not sure what he deserved to be greeted at death’s door by this specimen. Bucky’s service is over, honourably discharged living, and better yet, he’s able to see Steve again. 

Nevertheless, Steve plucks Bucky from the table like he’s a doll, loops an arm over his shoulders and all but carries him to safety. Steve saves him from certain death but Bucky isn’t sure there’s much left of him to be salvaged

  
  
  


Trekking back through the German wilderness to reach the allied base camp, Steve stands tall and commanding at his left. He carries himself differently. It’s not just that whatever the German Doctor pumped him with fixed his mild scoliosis, but its also that Steves brawn, his passion, determination and goodwill has finally rooted itself firmly in a form suitable to wield it. Steve can now _win_ the fights he starts. 

Bucky can see the way the other liberated soldiers look at Steve and it twists his stomach. For so long Steve was _his_ to adore. 

Sure Bucky was forever pulling him out of brawls or watching nervously as Steve’s lungs tried to suffocate him. However, the once scrawny kid had carried around a heart so full and pure that it leaked onto everything around him, a trail of gold that followed him through his life. Now they are surrounded by thousands who are scrambling to follow that path, to know the hero that saved their lives. 

Bucky will always be Steve’s but Steve is no longer just his. 

  
  


“

Steve falls and Bucky is left to fight on his own. Nursing a bottle of whiskey in a bombed-out pub in London, Agent Peggy Carter finds him just days after the mission that should have ended in celebrations. 

It doesn’t take a genius to know that Peggy and Steve had something. The type of connection that his sisters always awed about whenever they talked about boys and marriage. No doubt did Steve love Peggy, and Bucky gets why. She’s a stunner, but also whip-smart with a quick tongue. He’s seen her take down men double her size without breaking a sweat. 

Bucky could so easily imagine the life Steve and Peggy would have together after the war, a powerful duo making historic changes to the fabric of America all with the love of true soulmates to ground them. Bucky didn’t fit into that picture, but then he had never been able to formulate an image of who he’d be in the future. Even as a kid his imagination had drawn a frustrating blank, as, if he was destined for nothing and his brain, couldn’t even be bothered to pretend otherwise. 

Peggy takes a sip of whiskey, pulls a battered chair next to Bucky and sits. They stay cocooned in their sorrow, neither deeming it necessary to break the stagnant silence. 

America mourns the loss of a national icon, Peggy and Bucky grieve the loss of their greatest companion. 

“

It is Peggy who convinces Bucky to stay and fight the war. Lead the Howling Commandos to victory. He refuses to do it without her by his side and she agrees, taking up a position on his right-hand side, wielding a gun with fearsome skill and fury. 

Bucky is forced to attend team briefings with the inventor Howard Stark who is absolutely infuriating. No wonder Steve often came away from his run-ins with Stark in a rage, the man seemed obsessed with pushing everyone to the limits of their patience. But over time, Bucky starts to value Stark's wildness. He is one of the few people who don’t look at Bucky with pity. As the man who tries in vain to replace the greatest soldier America has ever known. Stark just treats him as the grumpy guy that breaks all his toys. 

Through it all Peggy is there too. Bucky jumps onto the Valkyrie, Hydra’s formidable plane, and she is the guiding voice in the back of his mind so that when he sees that Doctor, the one who stood over him for hours when he was kidnapped by the Germans, the harbinger of pain, it is Peggy’s voice in his mind that keeps him going, _for Steve._

  
  


He puts the plane down in the Atlantic, the Tesseract a pulsing blue light behind him. Peggy asks for his co-ordinates and he hesitates. If he put the plane down, let the icy currents swallow him, drift him off to sleep, he could see Steve again. Steve. Who would probably find a way to murder him even in death if he dared to think of doing something so stupid. And Bucky had received a letter from his sister Becca a week ago, she was engaged to be married and wanted him to walk her down the aisle. 

Peggy’s voice crackles through the intercom, “Barnes, your coordinates, we can pick you up… _please_.” 

  
  


Bucky relays his co-ordinates. Dips the nose of the plane down and ejects his seat. He flies skyward, high in the air as the plane falls in a graceful arc into the icy ocean. It sinks and disappears as he floats on the surface of the water and Bucky waits for Stark to pick him up. Take him back to Brooklyn. 

  
  


“

  
  


1945.

The war ends and America tries to heal. Streets are filled with gleeful citizens, those who got to keep the ones they love. Others celebrate in quiet, measured moments. Lives have been lost but the American spirit, they say, never dies. 

Bucky moves into Becca’s now home with her husband, waving goodbye to Peggy Carter, a valuable friend, who understood Steve just like he did, and carries him with her. She moves to LA working for a top-secret firm, she divulges little but promises to update him on her new address, pressing a red kiss to his cheek. She leaves and takes the warm with her. 

  
  
  


New York winters are bitter and cold, and they rest heavily on his chest now he endures them alone. Before, before the war, he and Steve would pile blankets high on the drooping mattress on the floor of their apartment, and huddle nose to nose giggling like school children. They joked that there wasn’t much point for walls in their apartment block, the cold seeped into every crevice of their flat as if they didn’t exist. Bucky would wake early to the darkness, mouthful of Steve’s hair in his mouth. He would lay there, listening to Steve's raspy breath as it lulled him back to sleep until he’d inevitably be jolted awake again by Steve pressing his cold toes between his calves. Punk.

  
  


Bucky sleeps in Becca’s guest bedroom, in a bed that feels like clouds. Sometimes he prays. He’s a bit rusty at the act, feels a little silly to be talking to someone he’s unsure is listening. He wishes, just for one night he could have Steve back, feel him octopus across the bed, his bony elbows jutting into his sides.

If he got to have a night where the gaping chasm of loneliness wasn’t so haunting, he swears he’d never want for anything ever again. 

“

  
  


A week after Steve picked Bucky off of the metal slab in the mad Doctors laboratory, the Howling Commandos were sent off on their first mission - infiltrating a Hydra base just south of Poland. They travelled for miles through thick, dense forest until their feet burned, exhausted from the gruelling pace Steve set. They found a small clearing deep amongst skyscraper trees and set up camp. 

Steve and Bucky shared a tent. Steve’s new hulking frame pressed up against Bucky’s back, his warm breath huffing gently against the nape of his neck. He was lighting a fire up his spine. In the morning Bucky would smugly declare that he felt toasty in his tent, whilst the rest of the men reheated their toes over the fire. But in the quiet of the night, Steve’s presence feels more like a curse. He adores Steve. 

  
  


Bucky falls asleep only to routinely wake shortly from a paralysing nightmare. He doesn’t remember the specifics of his night terrors but he often wakes convinced he’s still held hostage, being pumped full of burning drugs. On one of their first nights camping in the wilderness, he wakes with a jolt, refocusing his gaze, drinking in his surroundings. Small, grey tent, held up with wooden poles, he’s got two blankets resting on him, to his right there is empty space. Steve is sat, a silhouette in the moonlight which gifts a delicate halo around his golden hair. He is mesmerising. 

Feeling eyes on him, Steve turns and Bucky can see he is sketching. 

“Can’t sleep?” Bucky says, voice dry. 

Steve shakes his head, making room for Bucky to sit next to him at the tent opening, letting the cool air breeze over his face, wrapping the blankets up to his chin some more. 

“The serum, the one Erskine gave me to make me... this, I don’t really need much sleep. Haven’t slept more than a few hours in a while.”

Bucky is finding new things out about Steve every day. It feels like he’s running after a moving car, frantically trying to grab a hold on to the back for fear of being lost in the dust. He doesn’t want to think of a time where he won’t know everything about Steve.

He swallows the lump that’s shifted in his throat, “whatcha drawin’,” Bucky says, leaning over Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve angles the sketchpad towards him and Bucky sees his face pressed onto the page with soft charcoal. 

“Taking advantage of you sitting still for once,” Steve says, throwing Bucky a cheeky grin.

Bucky doesn’t reply. He is reminded that Steve is almost incapable of seeing the bad in others. The Bucky drawn on the page is soft, a serene picture of a man at rest. 

How can Steve not see it? He is a decaying man. There is something inside him, something that has been present ever since he was first taken to the lab, the one no one ever returned from. Darkness, inky and bleak that rests in the spaces between his ribs. It’s there whenever he holds his rifle, finger on the trigger.

Even before that, Bucky was rotten. Filled with a pulsing energy that lights up whenever Steve is close. It's what sparks the flame of heat that throbs through his toes up his body. Bucky is a sick man. 

They meet at dawn every night at the opening of the tent, watching the sun bleed across the sky, neither desiring any more rest. 

  
  
"

Brooklyn without Steve is quiet. On reflex Bucky swivels his head down every alley he passes, looking for the distinctive head of floppy blonde hair. Stark offers him an apprenticeship, working for him in the R&D part of his lab. He knows he’s mad to turn down the offer but Stark is making weapons for wars to come, and Bucky has had enough of the destruction.

Becca gets him a job working as a mechanic in a local garage, fixing up scrap cars. Years of piecing together various motor cars and bikes the commandos used on the field makes Bucky a fast, handy worker. He enjoys the rhythm of fixing, losing himself in the oil and grime. 

Settling into a routine, he works long days at the garage, goes home to Becca and her growing brood of children that fling themselves at his knees. He helps out around the neighbourhood some evenings, getting shopping, fixing odd plumbing jobs in peoples homes - a spark of Steve that lives through him. Then he retreats to his room. He thumbs through the few possessions from his and Steve’s old apartment perhaps writes to one of the commandos, who have spread across the country, or on good days he will contact Peggy, ask her how LA is. 

He does not look at the papers. It seems every day there is a new article sporting a memorial to Steve. They laud over the man the country claims they knew. Bucky does not need to know who they _think_ Steve was. 

At some point will settle down for sleep. Often he only manages a few hours. Only _needs_ a few. It makes him wonder if whatever they pumped through his blood whilst he was a prisoner is churning through him still, keeping him up at night. 

  
  
  





Peggy Carter calls him. He is no longer a longstanding guest in Becca’s house, he has moved a few blocks over and is living above a small grocery store where the rent is cheap and the draft through the windows is manageable. The owner often presses a crisp apple into his hand when he comes back from working at the garage, shooting him a wink. Assuming Bucky is in need of kindness. He does not correct him.

They call every 4th July, Steve’s birthday, sharing updates of their lives, reminiscing about the war. Peggy tells him all about her new family but resolutely refuses to discuss her work. She marries a man named Daniel Sousa, they have one child. Neither of them says that Steve should have been that man. Peggy has moved on, found happiness and success, the war no longer defines her.

Bucky wishes he could say the same. 

During the war, he first hears of Peggy Carter two nights into the liberated soldiers long walk back to their allied camp. The soldiers are merry, gathering around fires, lauding in the success of their getaway mission. A group of men that will one day form the Howling commandos huddle together, by far the loudest. 

Bucky is off behind a tree, throwing up. He hasn’t been able to keep down any of the meagre rations of food they have. He feels guilty still attempting to eat but the gnawing in his stomach forces him to persevere.

When he returns back to the campfire, Steve is surrounded by loud men. They are clearly ripping into him about something, Bucky watches as he rubs the back of his neck, smiling at the floor, wholesome as apple pie. It's such a Steve action, and yet Steve himself is so changed. The fact he’s able to sit close the crackling fire that spits out plumes of smoke is a miracle in itself. 

Steve sees Bucky return and he rolls his eyes, letting Bucky in on the joke as he makes room for him to squeeze into his side. 

“Say Barnes,” a man known as Dum Dum, sporting a thick gingery moustache bellows next to Bucky, “Steve here tell you anything ‘bout this lass he’s got waiting on him.” 

Bucky’s stomach turns and for a moment he worries he’s gonna have to run behind a tree again. No, Steve has not told him about any girl. Bucky’s been so exhausted and confused about Steve’s transformation, trying to forget the last few weeks, he hadn’t even thought about the inevitable benefits of suddenly becoming a perfect specimen. 

Bucky turns to eye Steve quizzically, putting on a show for the guys, “y’know he hasn’t, I think I’d like to know more.”

Rouge blossoms up Steve’s cheeks. Bucky knows it starts from his sternum, graces the tops of his shoulders and travels up the sinews of his neck. He swallows hard, trying not to think. Around him the group of men howl and hoot, begging their saviour to offer up the prized information about a member of the opposite sex. 

“Her name’s Agent Carter, and that’s all I’ll say about her for now,” Steve says, as the soldiers jolt with recognition. 

“Carter? You mean that bitch who hung around during training? You get her to crack a smile then Cap?” A voice rings out over the bustle of noise. 

Steve’s head snaps up so fast Bucky almost feels the crack his neck should have made. 

“Agent Carter is the finest Agent I’ve ever come across. You should show her some respect.” Steve says, utilising what will become known as his ‘Captain-grumpy-pants’ voice. 

The 107th doesn’t make a single crude remark about Agent Carter for the rest of their journey back to base. Bucky also chooses to not mention her to Steve and he doesn’t offer any information in return. He doesn’t think his heart could handle the strain. 

  
  
  


Peggy calls and Bucky knows immediately this is no friendly catchup. Her voice is sombre, serious. 

“Barnes, I have a proposition.” Her smooth voice rings through the speaker. He doesn’t say anything, waiting for her to fill in the silence. 

She’s started an organisation, well her and Howard, with the main aim at taking down any remaining Hydra bases still functioning. It’s called SHIELD. It’s been a long time since he’d been in the field, but she still wanted to call in case he was interested. They’re planning on launching missions soon, starting in Russia. Does he want to be a part of it? 

  
  


SHIELD. 

If she was trying to tempt him to accept her offer to join a secret military organisation then she certainly had chosen a persuasive name. He can’t lie and say he’s not interested. He enjoys the routine he’s faded into, the mundanity of the life he’s created. Yet he also knows that over a decade since losing Steve, he is no further to healing the hole his presence left behind when he fell from the train. There’s an empty space that follows him through his day. It sits on the end of his bed and stares at him whilst he sleeps, paws at his ankles when he walks to work every morning. It presses against the back of his neck, hunching his shoulders when he tries to make eye contact with others. Steve is a part of everything he does.

Bucky takes a few days to think. He knows what Steve would do. He’d jump headfirst back into the fight, all righteous fury. Bucky is not Steve, but he’s also not entirely sure he’s still Bucky. He looks in the mirror, at the face staring back at him. Heavy eyes, deep bruises circling underneath. 

He looks exactly the same as he did in 1943 even though he’s 36 years old. Becca is already complaining of grey hairs and an aching back but he hasn’t gained a single wrinkle. 

  
  


Bucky says yes. 

  
  


"

Agent Carter arrives in New York alongside a team of operatives and sets up base in a large multi-storey building that Howard Stark owns. They train together for a few months, creating a slick team. Peggy says nothing about Bucky’s ability to move with the same agility as he did over a decade ago, she just quirks an eyebrow and moves on to deliver orders to a struggling recruit. 

Bucky is back being a sniper, the position suits him well, as it always did. He has a keen eye, watching every minuscule movement from above. He is efficient, a bullseye shot and is pleased, if not slightly disgusted that it takes little time for him to reignite the brutality that once burned in the pit of his stomach. 

In the blink of an eye, he and his team are sent to Europe. Peggy is coordinating from a base in London and so says goodbye to him before he leaves. She pulls him close, a heavy musk of perfume brushing against him.

“Take care of yourself, Barnes. Not just for your own sake, but also mine,” she pulls away and gifts him a smile, “I’ve grown rather fond of you over the years.”

“You gonna wait for me, doll?” he asks, pressing a chaste kiss on her cheek, sliding into his long-forgotten charm, reminiscent of his pre-war self.

She pulls back with a bark of laughter, “depends how well you complete your mission.” 

They part and Bucky heads to the jet that will take them to their first destination, East Germany.

"

The rhythm of war beats through Bucky like a drum. Aim, fire, reload. Aim, fire, reload. Repeat. 

His team are efficient, ruthlessly so and make quick gains through the numerous Hydra bases that spawn through Eastern Europe. It is perhaps this streak of success, that paves the way for overconfidence that leads to their downfall.

Sent to Serbia, they are tasked with a routine op. Infiltrate an underground Hydra base, it’s still active but intel concludes it’s likely just menial desk work. Even Hydra agents have paperwork. They deem it an easy mission, no doubt they’ll be back to base camp laughing over beers in no time. 

  
  


Bucky knows as soon as they land something is wrong. He secures a position high in the trees that border the base, which looks like a shallow concrete block, but is actually at least 5 floors deep. The team starts its approach and it seems as if the base is woefully under-protected, but the back of Bucky’s neck prickles. 

There is an eerie silence. This base is supposedly low-level desk jockeys, then why is the hundred of thousands of miles of the dense forest so silent? He’s not heard a single bird whistle, or woodland creature stumble or howl. He goes to alert his team, request one quick recon before they enter but it is too late. 

One of his team has made it through a security door and an alarm is triggered. There is a flash and Bucky feels the ground shake. Through his comms unit, he can hear screaming. Pure terror floods his earpiece. Bucky slides down the tree ready to back his team-up. 

Clearly the base is posing as a low-level operation, but whatever they’re hiding in there is dangerous enough that the base has technology guarding the inside that has caused his special ops unit to scream loud enough to curdle his blood.

Bucky doesn’t make it. He blacks out just moments after his feet hit the ground. 

  
  
  


“

  
  





Austria has an uncommonly warm summer, the thick ice that blankets the floor of the ravines and caverns between the mountain peaks has melted. The ice floor dips record-breakingly low. 

Avid scientists and experienced hikers leap to take advantage of the new, uncompromising terrain. It is a group of hikers who see a flash of red in the snow. At first, they assume it must be some bloody animal carcass, slowly becoming visible after decades frozen in ice. They then wonder if it might be a forgotten hiker, buried in the snow, wearing a bright red coat. As they tread closer, eyes adjusting to the new sight of something that isn’t bright, white ice the objects become clear. 

  
  


A round metal disc is buried in the snow. Red, silver and blue. There is a star stamped in the middle of the shield, glistening with icy crystals that blink in the sun. The hikers have found the sleeping body of Captain Steven Rogers, WW2 soldier deemed Missing in Action for over 70 years. 

  
  


Steve Rogers awakens in the 21st century and is alone. 

  
  
  


Thousands of miles across land and sea another soldier wakes. He has been frozen in a glacial chrysalis, slumbering until the time comes where he will be of use again. When it comes, he will be ready to comply. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Period-Typical Internalized Homophobia - there are a few references to Bucky's feelings towards Steve, which he describes as a sickness.


End file.
